Yowza, splendiferous!

A math question:

If I would take plaid over polka dots,

Paisley over floral prints,

Solids over any pattern,

And stripes over plaid,

In which column would you place Bobby?

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Got out of work last night at about 7 after a 3.5-hour review meeting on just ONE of the 7 documents I’m writing up for a looming submission deadline.

One 38-page document. Three and a half hours. There are simply no words to describe just how heavy my heart is over this, except to say that I have another meeting scheduled this afternoon to talk some MORE about that item plus the other 6 we didn’t get to yesterday.

The life of a medical writer is a fat load of dookey at times. However, it beats the living snot out of the following jobs:

- Elephant house maintenance worker
- Day care provider
- Any member of the staff at Golden Corral
- Car salesman
- Telecenter rep at a collections agency
- Chicken plucker

Or just about any other job that would require me to 1) get up early, 2) punch a time clock, 3) be physically present on site 100% of the time, or 4) give up access to the internet at work.

Yeah, this writerly gig can be soul-crushing at times, but as I sit in my cushy chair with the sunshine coming in through the hole I knocked in my cube wall, I know I have it better than about 99.8% of the earth’s population.

Which brings me to something else in rather a roundabout way... It's this: A few weeks back I became a Godmother to two kids in a rather unusual manner.

Through adoption.

See, our church is getting involved in Lemonade International a organization focused on helping the families who live in one of the very worst slums in Guatemala City. There are thousands of families living in tin shacks perched on the slopes of a ravine, with no electricity or running water or many of the niceties that make life pleasant. There are thousands of children there who have no access to doctors, dentists, or schools. Lemonade International has identified just ONE neighborhood of this vast barrio, called “La Limonada” (get it? Lemonade? Cleh-vur!) as a starting point for aid. They’ve put up schools to which the kids FLOCK to learn about regular school stuff but also about life skills, living a healthy life, how to negotiate a culture of gangs and sexual predators, and what it’s like to be loved by someone. They provide many other services to assist those kids in those awful conditions as well.

To see the pictures of these kids on the website, so young and hopeful, is to fall in love with them.

Thirty bucks a month is what it takes to sponsor a child. That's it! Cheap enough, so we took 2. That’s equivalent to 2 ‘pizza nights’ a month we might not get to have, or 1 trip to the movies, or a bottle of good bourbon we don’t buy in order to sponsor 2 kids who have so very little that even a new toothbrush is a big thing. So, for Daniel (14) and Alicia (11), our little “guacamoleans,” we sacrifice something small so they can receive something big – a future.

Supporting Lemonade International isn’t specific to just our church – anyone can do it. There are lots of kids down there who still need help. Once the target market (so to speak) is fully addressed, more neighborhoods will be added to Lemonade International’s scope. One small step at a time will get them to their goal of servicing the tremendous need present in La Limonada…and you can help if you feel ready. You can pick a kid, sign up to sponsor them, and begin building a relationship with someone for whom your pocket change means the world.

Think about it, won’t you?

And have a wonderful day.